Abstract
Background: Due to its central role as a determinant of functioning in schizophrenia, social cognition has gained increasing attention from researchers the past two decades. There is however still a need to investigate, on a more detailed level, associations between separate domains of social cognition, symptoms and social functional outcome. In addition there is a need to develop new social cognitive measures that are applicable in clinical settings. These topics will be explored in this study by evaluating a measure of one social cognitive domain, emotion perception, adapted from the social neuroscience tradition. Associations between emotion perception and external factors; neurocognition, symptom level and social functional outcome, will be investigated. Methods: Participants in the study were 54 patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 185 clinically healthy persons recruited from the Thematically Organized Psychosis research (TOP) study at the Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research (NORMENT) K.G. Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research. Emotion perception measure was the Emotion in Biological Motion (EmoBio) test. Symptom level was assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and neurocognition was measured with subtests from the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS) Consensus Cognitive battery (MCCB). Social functional capacity was indexed by the Assessment of Interpersonal Problem-Solving Skills (AIPSS) test and social functioning measure was the Social Functioning Scale (SFS). The student participated in data collection and -entry and conducted the statistical analyses. Results/conclusions: Patients performed significantly below healthy controls on emotion perception abilities measured with the EmoBio. Significant relationships were found with neurocognition, disorganization- and excitement symptoms. The relationship with social functional capacity was somewhat stronger than the relationship with social functioning, although neither of the associations reached statistical significance. Implications of the study are that it underlines the importance of detailed symptom assessment in schizophrenia. The use of EmoBio in evaluation of social functional outcome is however questionable.